August 5, 2015 – Panasonic Avionics has delivered its 800th aircraft equipped with its eXConnect global broadband connectivity service, and has indicated that it expects to deliver its 1,000th connected aircraft by the end of 2015.
The system, which was installed on a B757-200 aircraft, was delivered mid-July to United Airlines. In addition to being the 800th aircraft equipped with eXConnect, the B757-200 was also the 332th connected aircraft that Panasonic has delivered to United.
Paul Margis, president and CEO of Panasonic Avionics said, “We committed to the connected aircraft vision a decade ago and now, it’s a reality. Our goal remains the same – use connectivity to deliver business value to airlines and increase their bottom line, while delighting passengers. The numbers confirm the majority of airlines trust us to do that.”
According to Panasonic, since 2008, over 50% of all commercial airlines have chosen eXConnect for inflight connectivity. Last year alone, Panasonic increased its backlog to over 2,300 aircraft, and is expected to have over 12,000 connected aircraft connected the global network within the next 10 years.
David Bruner, VP of global communications services for Panasonic Avionics added, “The demand for connectivity onboard commercial aircraft has grown exponentially. In the past 90 days alone, we have delivered more than 1.2 terabytes of traffic over our network each day. Today’s passengers today are consuming from 1.3 to 20 gigabytes of data per flight using eXConnect.”
Bruner continued, “We’ve also seen incredible uptake of our global television service, eXTV. Last year, 1.4 million passengers watched the World Cup on Panasonic-equipped aircraft. We saw similar high volume traffic as passengers tuned in to the Woman’s World Cup and Wimbledon. Our eXPhone service, offered in conjunction with Aeromobile, has also seen higher volume usage year over year. Over the last 12 months, we have seen a 40% increase in passengers using the service, 41% more calls, a 35% increase in voice call minutes, almost 40% more SMS being sent and a 232% increase in data traffic for email, web browsing, and other applications.”
